The Unhoneymooners(73)

“I haven’t talked to him since I left.” I lower myself down beside her.

“Like at all?”

I take a breath. “I wanted to talk to you first.”

She frowns, confused. “To me? Is this about how weird he was being?”

“No, I—What do you mean?”

“He was just really quiet, and about twenty minutes after I got there, he said he was going to head out. Dane said he probably had the same bug you had.”

I clench my hands into fists, and then imagine what it would be like to slam one of them into Dane’s smug face. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about Dane.”

“Dane?”

“Yeah. He . . .” I pause, trying to figure out where to begin. I have gone through this conversation a thousand times, but I still don’t have the right words. “Do you remember when Ethan and I first met?”

Ami purses her lips together as she thinks back. “At some picnic or something?”

“The State Fair. Pretty soon after you and Dane started dating. Apparently Ethan thought I was cute, and when he mentioned to Dane that he wanted to ask me out, Dane told him not to bother.”

“Wait, Ethan wanted to ask you out? How did he go from that to hating your guts, all in one day?”

“It’s sort of a long story.” I tell her about seeing Ethan, thinking he was hot, how he was sort of flirty . . . and then his reaction when he saw me eating. I explain that it was a misunderstanding, but I can tell she gets it—we’ve both always struggled with our curvy genes, and objectively the world treats thin women differently. “But I guess Ethan had asked Dane if it was cool if he asked me out, and Dane basically said I wasn’t very nice, and not to bother. Since I thought Ethan was being a jerk about the food, I was distant to him, and then he just assumed Dane was right, and that set our entire dynamic into motion.”

Ami laughs like this is a silly joke. “Dane wouldn’t say that, honey. He’s always hated that you two couldn’t get along. He was genuinely so happy when he saw you two at the airport.”

“Really?” I ask. “Or is he just saying that because it’s what we all want to hear?” I stand from the couch and move to sit on the coffee table in front of her. I take her hand in mine. Our hands are similar in so many ways, but Ami has a glittering diamond on her ring finger.

“I think . . .” I say, still focused on our entwined fingers. This is so hard to say—even to the person I know best in the whole world. “I think Dane wanted to keep me and Ethan apart because he didn’t want Ethan to let it slip that Dane was seeing other women when you were first together.”

Ami jerks her hand away like she’s been shocked. “Olive, that’s not funny. Why would you say that?”

“Listen to me. I don’t know the exact dates, but Ethan said something in Maui about you and Dane not being exclusive until right before the engagement.”

“Ethan said that? Why would he—”

“He assumed you knew. But you and Dane were exclusive the whole time, right?”

“Of course we were!”

I already knew this, but I’m hit with a spike of vindication nonetheless. I know my sister.

She stands and walks to the other side of the room. Ami is no longer bouncy and postworkout-giddy. She’s quiet, brow furrowed. My sister fidgets when she’s anxious, and right now she’s tugging on her ring, absently spinning it around her finger.

Being a twin means oftentimes feeling responsible for the other’s emotional well-being, and right now all I want is take it all back, pretend I’m joking and travel back to a time when I knew none of this. But I can’t. I may never know what my ideal relationship looks like, but I do know that Ami deserves to be enough for someone, to be loved completely. I have to keep going.

“All the trips they took? Dane let you think they were Ethan’s idea, that Ethan had planned them—”

“They were Ethan’s idea. Like, objectively,” she says. “Dane wouldn’t plan that kind of thing without talking to me first. Ethan planned stuff to get over Sophie, and because he’s single—or was”—she lets out a weird, surprised snort—“he just assumed that Dane was free for all the holidays, too.”

“Most of these trips were before Sophie, or during.” I watch her look for more reasons to explain all this away, and say, “Look, I understand why that’s what Dane wanted you to think.” I wait until she meets my eyes, hoping she sees that I’m being sincere. “It looks better for him if Ethan is the one who is constantly dragging Dane around the world on these crazy adventures. But Ami, Ethan hates to fly. You should have seen him on the plane to Maui—he could barely keep it together. He gets seasick, too. And seriously, he’s such a homebody—like me. I honestly can’t imagine Ethan planning a surfing trip to Nicaragua now—like, the idea makes me laugh. Dane was using Ethan as an excuse to go do stuff and to see other women. There’s at least one other woman that Ethan mentioned.”

“Where the fuck is your tinfoil hat, you psycho?” Ami growls. “I’m supposed to believe that my husband is that manipulative? That he’s been cheating on me for what—three years? Do you really hate him that much?”

“I don’t hate him, Ami—at least I didn’t.”